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Reproduced with permission from Revue de droit uniforme/Uniform Law Review (1997) 385-395

excerpt from

The U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods: A Critical Analysis of Current International Case Law - 1997 (Part 1)

Michael Joachim Bonell [*] and Fabio Liguori [**]

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[Need to promote uniformity in application of Convention]

Very rarely do decisions take into account the solutions adopted on the same point by courts in other countries. Until now it would appear that there are only two decisions rendered by national judges in which express reference is made to foreign precedents.[10]

The first of these judgments was handed down by the Tribunale Civile of Cuneo. In applying the provisions of the Convention requiring the buyer to examine the goods and give notice of any lack of conformity, the Italian court, for the purpose of interpreting the rather vague formulae "within as short a period as is practicable in the circumstances" and "within a reasonable time" contained in Articles 38 and 39, did not hesitate to refer to two judgments handed down in similar cases in Switzerland by the Pretore of Locarno-Campagna, and in Germany by the Landgericht of Stuttgart.[11]

The second judgment, rendered by the Cour d'appel of Grenoble,[12] expressly referred to a decision of the Oberlandesgericht of Düsseldorf [13] to demonstrate that "l'interprétation habituellement donnée de [l'article 57 de la Convention] est qu'elle exprime le principe général que le paiment s'exécute au domicile du créancier."

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Go to entire text of Bonell/Liguori commentary


FOOTNOTES

* Professor, Law Faculty, University of Rome 1 "La Sapienza"; Legal Consultant, Unidroit.

** Attorney in Rome; Research fellow, University of Rome 1 "La Sapienza".

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10. It should be noted that in both decisions the UNILEX database is expressly referred to as a source of reference for foreign case law on CISG.

11. Tribunale civile di Cuneo, 31 January 1996, n. 45/96 (Sport D'Hiver di Genevieve Culet c. Ets. Louys et Fils), in UNILEX 1996. The foreign cases cited by the Italian judges are: Pretura di Locarno-Campagna (Switzerland), 27 April 1992, n. 6252, in UNILEX 1996, and Landgericht Stuttgart, 31 August 1989, n. 3KfH 097/89, in Recht der Internationalen Wirtschaft (1989) 984.

12. Cour d'Appel de Grenoble, Ch. com., 23 October 1996 (Scea Gaec Des Beauches Bernard Bruno c. Societé teso Ten Elsen GMBh & CokG), unpublished (kindly supplied by Professor J.-P. Beraudo) (cf. summary published in ULR 1997-1, 180).

13. Cf. Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf, 2 July 1993, n. 17 U 73/93, in Recht der Internationalen Wirtschaft (1993) 843.

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Pace Law School Institute of International Commercial Law - Last updated August 16, 1999
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